Bush & Torture

Andrew Sullivan's open letter to Pres. Bush on torture is one I'd hope Dubya will read and answer.

Beck, ACORN, Health Care Protests

The past week or so has been very strange with media coverage. Glenn Beck is now the most vicious, ruthless puppet-master out there. Huh? Beck's been spending weeks investigating the people in Pres. Obama's White House, and his reporting has actually resulted in Van Jones resigning, another WH player getting demoted, and now citizen-journalists exposed ACORN. But most of the media is only reporting the parts they have to, and they're getting buried. It's been bizarre.

I first discovered Beck a few years ago. He had a talk-radio show, and he had a show on CNN Headline News. I watched parts of his show every once in a while. In non-election years I hardly ever watch more than a few minutes of any of the cable news show each week, but Beck had a fun sense about him.

Now in early 2008 he got a little more doomsday to him. He barked for months that the economy was going to collapse. And then it did. He railed against TARP until he decided to support it at the last minute because the financial people he talked to said the US economy would collapse without it.

Talk radio in general has taken on a paranoid turn since Obama won the election. Rush Limbaugh kept saying Obama's a cold, mean guy; Laura Ingraham's called him a prime candidate to replace Jimmy Carter as the worst president ever. Sean Hannity's been Hannity. He's usually in a good mood and will say with a smile he believes Obama's destroying America. he makes me wish I could get Colmes's show on the radio around here.

Beck is frightened by the people Obama surrounds himself with. I can't defend him saying he thinks Obama's a racist and has a "deep-seated hatred of white people." That was just a dumb thing to say. Beck threw meat to the critics and they chewed. About a month ago, Newsweek had two different columns lumping Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin together as examples of right-wing crazies.

So now Beck's had an increase in death threats and had to increase his security. There hasn't been much disputing of his reporting, because what he's reporting isn't getting played in most of the media. But after Van Jones, Beck had his first "scalp" said The Daily Beast. Keith Olbermann demanded dirt on Beck.

And when ACORN was exposed for trying to help a "pimp" and "prostitute" get housing, lie to the IRS, and even ship in underage El Salvadorean girls for prostitution, well that only got play on Fox News and the internet. It seems like kind of a big story.

Which is a long walk to the health care protests in D.C. over the weekend. Naturally when NBC mentioned it, they found a sign that said "Hitler Gave Good Speeches Too." Will those right-wingers never learn? But what got a lot more play was Joe Wilson's "You Lie!" outburst. Champagne corks must've popped at the DNC after they found themselves a new poster-boy villain.

How many were at the protests? "Tens of thousands" said NBC. The UK press said 2 million.

Look, I want Pres. Obama to succeed. He'll succeed if he gets a health-care bill that does more good than harm. He'll succeed if the unemployment rate back to the 5% range. And when Wilson shouted what he did, I though on one hand, that's stupid. On the other hand, I'd like to see the president and Congress engage in a British-style back and forth every few months where Congress asks the questions and the president has to answer. Woulda been good to have under Bush too.

I go to many sources to get my news. I think sane Americans should, to be informed. The ones who reject 100% of what Fox News says are blinding themselves. Fox is biased, absolutely, but there are facts in there. I'll watch MSNBC to see Joe Scarborough or Chris Matthews too. I'll watch CNN, I'll flip through Politico, RealClearPolitics, Daily Beast, Drudge, Googlenews, even HuffPo sometimes to see what the left-wing spin of the day is.

I also realized that I like watching the Sunday newsshow round tables, because it's one of the only times pundits who disagree will sit together and have a civil discussion.

A Pox on Both Their Houses

Camille Paglia's unimpressed with either party right now.

Keep this kid away from your daughters

Levi Johnston, the father of Sarah Palin's grandchild, is turning out to be quite the scumbag.

RIP Sen. Ted Kennedy

I just find it too bad one of the last pieces of legislation he was aiming for was getting rid of the 2004 Massachusetts law he supported. Hopefully even though he's passed away, the Massachusetts legislature won't do anything as shamelessly hypocritical as to wipe away their old 2004 law.

Before a legislator votes on anything, he should ask himself, "Would I be okay with this law regardless of who is in power?" If the answer is "No" then their vote should be "No."

Intelligent Health-Care Debate

On one side, the Democrats wants to pass universal health care. On the other side, the Republicans want to keep government out of health care. Now the best thing for Americans to do at this time would clearNAZI NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!! GOEBBELS!! NAZI NAZI SWASTIKA!!! NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!! NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!! NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!! NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!! NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!! NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!! NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!! NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!! NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!! NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!! NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!! NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!! NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!! NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!!

Whoa, okay that person sat down. Now we live in a society where health care costs are rising, premiums are rising, and yet we keep NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!! NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!! NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!! NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!! NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!! NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!! NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!! NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!!

Excuse me. I realize to show up to a debate, it helps to have passion, but the passionate ones on both sides are the fringes. Can we reasonable people try to actually solve this NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!! NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!! NAZI NAZI NAZI HITLER!! NAZI SWASTIKA GOOSESTEPPING BROWNSHIRTS!!!

Oh, I've run out of time.

Sen. Kennedy wants to change his own law

Ted Kennedy wanted Massachusetts succession law to be what it is now because he was worried then Republican governor Mitt Romney could appoint a Republican senator for Massachusetts if Democratic senator John Kerry won the 2004 Presidential election. But it seems lawmakers aren't willing to rewrite the law back and forth every few years.

Millions of fringe Americans

Let's play fast and loose with some numbers. The last paragraph in Kuhn's article on fringe partisans rang true for me. I have friends I would consider fanatic Democrats and fanatic Republicans. So if 34% of voters call themselves Democrats and 24% of voters call themselves Republican, and 35% of those Democrats are fanatics (Bush knew about 9/11 beforehand, Glenn Beck is evil, etc.), and 28% of those Republicans are fanatics (Obama was born in Kenya, Chris Matthews is Satan). Now if there were 100,000,000 voters (I'm probably way-off there but let's keep it round and simple), 34 million are Democrats and of them, that makes 11.9 million fanatic lefties. These are the people who wouldn't mind Sarah Palin dying in a plane crash, who visit DailyKos every day, believe everything MediaMatters says, watch Keith Olbermann every night, who think Dick Cheney is more evil than Joseph Stalin, and are quick to hate anyone with an (R) by their name. Of the 24 million Republicans, 6.72 million won't miss Sean Hannity, get all their news from Newsmax and WorldNetDaily, think Obama secretly wants to turn us into the Soviet States of America, that the government will play eugenics on old people if the health care bill passes, and are quick to hate anyone with a (D) by their name. And both of them are quick to see the mote in the eyes of their brethren across the aisle without noticing the beam in their own.

So based on these flimsy numbers, we have a lot of crazies. But if almost 19% of the electorate is extremist, is it really crazy? Is it really fringe? Maybe this lends some light as to why so many communites online that deal with politics are so mean-spirited and nasty. And I go back to this paragraph:

A few years ago, an Emory psychologist scanned the brains of self-described partisans. Partisans were able to notice the hypocritical statements of the opposing candidate but not the inconsistencies of their preferred candidate. Ideology, it was determined, showed effects similar to drug addiction.

Now there is an ebb and flow to power, and also party affiliation. The Democrats gained in 1992, and lost in 1994, gained in 1996, lost in 2000, lost in 2004, gained big in 2006 and 2008.

Remember how lost and disorganized the Democrats seemed in 2004? Then they found a leader they could rally behind in Obama (and benefitted from Bush's failures with Abu Ghraib, Katrina, and the recession). The Republicans are now where the Dems were in 2004, except their 2008 might not happen until 2012 or 2016 or 2020, depending when the good leader emerges.